Software/IT Companies Recruitment

[fogbat]

Nobody with sense gives a flying fuck about an MSCE or what ever they are.

If your in IT and want to further it (and have a degree) the one and only good way I know is to get a Post Grad degree. Either as a conversion to IT for non IT people or a taught or research MSc in something interesting (well to me) like Databases or Parallel processing.

You will be suprised how much this is valued.

This sounds very encouraging for me:
I'm on Birkbeck's MSc Computer Science course (IT conversion course for non-IT grads) and will be looking for software engineering / development jobs soonish.

Glad to hear it's valued

 

[Kameron]

The biggest stumbling block was IT recruitment consultants. They refused to pass my CV on for any job, unless I matched the firm's requirements 100%.

You need a different recruitment consultant my friend; if you aren't being offered at least one interview a week that matches what you want to do they aren't doing their job. Either that or you had wildly out of proportion ambitions.

 

[Kameron]

Nobody with sense gives a flying fuck about an MSCE or what ever they are.

If you want to do IT for a company that knows nothing about IT then they do have a tendancy to get out the recrutment play book, that has the MSCE right on the first line but even then it says "or 4 years experiance", I know which I'd rather have.

 

[radiohead]

Yeah. , eh?

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcse/windows2003/

It looks quite in-depth on paper. What the actual courses or exams contain, however, I couldn't begin to speculate upon.

each course is a massive text-book containing comparitively little information

i was completely and utterly new to server 2003 when i went on my first course -- by the 2nd day i was playing hearts to beat the boredom..

it's all a money-spinning scam imho

 

[EastEnder]

it's all a money-spinning scam imho

Call me cynical, but that tends to be my first thought whenever I hear of a course to learn about a product, where the course has been devised and/or run by the same company that makes the product.

Would you trust someone who'd graduated from a Microsoft sponsored university?

 

[UnknownToker]

Sorry to jump in but whats the overall vibe off this thread with regard to getting a job in the IT industry? I screwed up what i was doing last year, and now i really got to get my arse into gear and set myself some goals.
If i studied somekind of IT course in college and then went onto a degree are the prospects good? And what about not doing a degree?
Is there any fields that are better to get into then others?
I don't mind IT, i used to be a bit of a geek teaching myself C++ and web languages although never really got in too deep. And right now theres nothing else that really appeals to me, IT doesn't either, but at least ive got a bit of experience.

 

[mauvais]

I think it's easy to get into the industry. Lots of people can't, and complain there's no jobs, but there are loads. They either don't have the right qualifications or more frequently the right skills/attitude.

I've just got a First in software engineering, cos I find it quite straightforward, but my technical proficiency isn't that important. My interview - for Siemens - contained two trivial technical exercises - pointers in C and inheritance in Java, which anyone should know. The bulk of it was on what's called agile development - best practices and development methods rather than anything specific about implementation.

Why did I get the job? Maybe noone else applied but never mind that! I believe I got it because I'd done a year in industry on a placement, because I could demonstrate a (somewhat bare) set of stuff I'd been doing - as simple as being part of a photography society, for instance - and some core skills like teamwork or large project organisation. I talked a bit about all these things and gave the right impression. I'm not the best at expressing myself or the high powered stuff a consultancy might look for but it was all just fine.

I think any prospective software engineer would really need to get a good degree - no practical difference between a 2.1 and 1st by the way - but failing that you could find other ways to get your foot in the door. Non-degree courses are a waste of time unless you're doing them to learn something in particular rather than get a qualification that you hope will look attractive in the job market - it almost certainly won't IMO.

Have a well presented and succint CV, come across well in any interviews and have enough backup life-wise to make yourself look like a human and not a crazy geek machine. Whoever said people skills etc aren't at all important is entirely wrong. I'm no shining star of social interaction by anyone's standards but you need it to get the job done properly.

I also don't believe in spending any more time in academia. I think if you have a BSc student with experience, and an MSc without, on an otherwise equal footing, the BSc will win every time, unless they're applying to do something academic itself. It was invaluable to me, and it will be to them. Employers want to see how you've actually applied yourself outside of the learning environment.

 

[Iam]

have enough backup life-wise to make yourself look like a human and not a crazy geek machine. Whoever said people skills etc aren't at all important is entirely wrong. I'm no shining star of social interaction by anyone's standards but you need it to get the job done properly.

This is SO true (despite what I've said elsewhere about my own lacking people skills). My experience is that people who do well in industry are those able to communicate techincal ideas and concepts at a human level, rather than solely being able to commune in machine code.

Congratulations, btw, mauv.

 

[mauvais]

Cheers! I sort of posted this on the wrong thread - meant to put it on the other one but it all worked out the same really